I think you have the majority of champions in a good spot right now, with just a few exceptions on either end of the spectrum. That's to be expected given the amount of champions in the game, as well as additional variables such as itemization. Only major complain is that ADC itemization kinda sucks. Pretty much build the same thing every game.
Cloud Potato3 votesADC itemization is better than it used to be. Generally, each ADC will have some variation in builds with each other, although in terms of each ADC by themselves the variation could use some work. Better than before, when if you couldn't make good use of Bloodthirster, you weren't a good ADC.
Other roles have shocking itemization though. Tanks have a few god like tank items (Sunfire, Randuins, Veil, Visage, and Locket), and the rest are situational ones you buy if you run out of the previous 5. Also, Bruisers use their items better than they do. Assassins of both scalings are pretty limited, since their willingness to buy situational items is stupidly small compared to big damage items, but that might be a class-wide issue rather than an item issue. Oh, and anyone in the Support position is pretty limited in their build, too.
Come to think of it, ADC itemization ain't so bad.
MrBuffington1 votesOr ADC, tank, support, and Mage itemization could use a little attention :P. I agree it's better than before, but a little more variation could be nice, like having a reason to buy ER or merc scimitar, aside from just heavily situational stuff.
Cloud Potato2 votesYeah, we mostly have "it's good to buy me all the time" items and "I'm a good buy if I synergise with you enough to make up for not being generally good" items. This structure means that new items in the first category just raise the power level across the board (League of Cleavers was a fun time to be), and new items in the second category barely see play (Essence Reaver, Runaan's Hurricane, Banner of Command, I can go on). It's even worse when the strong items aren't universally good. Then you get champions who synergise with the item becoming dominant.
Half of the itemization issues can be fixed by flattening power curves. Infinity Edge and Rabadon's Deathcap do what their competitors do and more, instead of specifically focusing on powerful basic attacks and boosting non-damage AP ratios respectively. Randuin's doesn't need to give more physical defense than pure Armor items since it gives defense against magic damage as well, and it doesn't even pay for it besides having a pretty bad build path (actually noticing a pattern here; a lot of the really strong items have bad build paths).
The other half are items that are just badly designed due to being niches that are too small. This leaves the items either being good on everyone but abusive on a few, or good on a few but useless on everyone else. Grail is supposed to give champions with mana issues a way to compete when faced against champions lacking resource management, but it can screw up resource management itself on anyone whose mana issues are minor (plus 20% CDR really isn't needed). Runaan's Hurricane is supposed to give basic attackers who lack AoE damage a way to wave clear if they need to, but it synergises too well with one type of damage (on hits) and ignores another (crit chance) to compensate, leaving the standard basic attackers sacrificing too much damage and on hit dependent basic attackers gaining too much damage.
Supports face a different problem, and that's their gold income. They get an item to generate gold, but it's being spent on upgrading itself, then a Sightstone. Supports buying more items is technically possible, but it's far easier to just default to the old "pick whoever gets by the best with no gold" than to change the meta. Whee.
MrBuffington1 votesThe problem is that bad build paths hardly stop people from just sucking up the disadvantage till they get that 1550/1600 for BFS or NLR (there are some ways around it though, I've heard imls recommend blasting want + blue pot if you can't afford NLR, since it does almost the same thing if not better. I'm assuming the same thing could be said about pickaxe + red pot if you can't afford BFS). The disadvantage of waiting for your items isn't much of a disadvantage when you can just turtle till you get enough gold (another reason why stall champions like Ziggs makes hypercarries like Tristana even more potent). Unless you're a serious early game bully and can absolutely crush your opponent to irrelevancy (old Renekton) or snowball your entire team (Lee Sin), you better have a plan for late game.
12tales1 votesOnly major complain is that ADC itemization kinda sucks. Pretty much build the same thing every game.
Generally disagree with this. There are champions that are building BotRK/Ghostblde, some that build IE/Shiv, some that are building Trinity Force, and a few oddballs like Lucian that have multiple builds unique to themselves. BotRK and BT compete for the lifesteal slot on most champions, and LW is the only truly ubiquitous item. Even Zerk Greaves aren't built on every champion - CDR and MPen boots make appearances on Lucian and Corki, respectively.
